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Completely disagree. That's like saying mechanics classes should be required, since everyone has a car and other machines. Most people can't, or are incredibly

by edanm 16y ago

Completely disagree. That's like saying mechanics classes should be required, since everyone has a car and other machines. Most people can't, or are incredibly not interested, in being at the level of even simple scripting. There is only one solution to letting more people do more things with computers: make things easier. Things that were once impossible are now incredibly easy for a lot of people, because interfaces are getting better all the time. That's the way to get more people comfortable with computers, not forcing them to spend time learning a skill they're not going to learn anyway. And as a nice side bonus, making interfaces easier to use ends up saving everyone time, even people who are technically inclined, and makes much cooler things possible. So everyone comes out a winner.

avar 16y ago
That analogy doesn't hold up. If you learn mechanics you can repair and maintain your car, and even build a new one. But you'll never get your car to drive your kids to school without you sitting behind the wheel. But you can do the equivalent of that if you're programming literate. We're moving to a digital culture, and if you don't know how to program you'll increasingly only become a consumer of other people's solutions, without the ability to solve your own problems. Some people are calling this "procedural literacy". As an aside I'd argue that computer interfaces have actually gotten somewhat worse while getting more friendly to newcomers. I think the last major leap in computer interfaces was cron(1). Unlike most modern interfaces being produced today you can use it to tell your computer to produce periodic reports and things like that. That's where we should be headed with UI's, not aiming to have a monkey banging at the terminal at all times, but giving the monkey the ability to dictate things to the computer so he doesn't have to bang at the terminal. Real computing power is being able to say: "Computer, I'm feeling under the weather today and I think I'll sleep in. At 9am please start playing 'Daddy's sick, get up and go to school!' on a loop in the kid's bedroom at 75 dB, and continue producing noise until they get out the door, engage!". You can implement those sorts of things if you're a programmer.
- jonsen 16y ago
  There sure is some truth in that procedural awareness should be higher. But I think the analogy holds. You should not teach mechanics, but you should teach natural sciences in a way that principles are transferable to mechanics, and to building, and to a lot of other things. I think it's deeply wrong to try and raise procedural awareness by forcing the technicalities of state of the art programming on the common man. You should find a way to teach algorithmic principles so that they are generally applicable.
  - avar 16y ago
    I think you need to teach these things at an early age, and teaching "algorithmic principles" while sound in theory is probably also a good way to make an entire class of children ignore you completely. The best way to teach people procedural awareness is probably to teach people to tinker with something they can start using right away. Things like automatically programming your phone to reply to your parents via SMS with some plausible responses when you're out drinking, use the Facebook API to get info about your friends that they thought wasn't accessible etc. Show how you can use rtmpdump to download your favorite music from some closed video site, or write a script for uTorrent that'll have downloaded your favorite TV episode by the time you wake up. The most important thing is to show people that procedural awareness will be worthwhile for them in their everyday life. It's easy to demonstrate that, and it's actually true for most people, unlike other some other subjects at school which'll probably never be pertinent to the average student.
    - jonsen 16y ago
      Tinkering is fine. The real problem is making abstractions and general knowledge from it. All too easily tinkering turns into nerdery, thrilling some, despicable to others.
    - hoprocker 16y ago
      > The most important thing is to show people that procedural awareness will be worthwhile for them in their everyday life. Make knowledge acquisition both a) fun and b) timely. Add a motivating situation that leads people to want/need to learn, and they will.
saulhoward 16y ago
> That's like saying mechanics classes should be required I think mechanics class should totally be required. I'm often amazed that we force children to study subjects like geography or physics, that are important but only if you're interested in them and not terribly practical anyway. I think all children should have to learn basic life skills to enable them to control their physical and social environment ('hack' in the context of this article). Subjects such as driving, mechanics, basic electronics, law, small business, tax, nutrition, rhetoric, negotiation, plumbing etc. etc. And those just off the top of my head. All 'academic' subjects should merely be introduced and then left up to the student to choose to pursue. What on earth is the point of filling children's heads full of history (for example) if they aren't interested? They forget every word of it a year after their final exam anyway.
- edanm 16y ago
  Your points are definitely interesting. But I still think I'd teach a lot of what you wrote above before I'd even think to teach them programming. Plus, empirically, people have a harder time learning to program than e.g. learning to drive.
felixc 16y ago
Well, the underlying question is whether simple scripting is (in your analogy) closer to "mechanics" or to "driver's license education". I think you're right that at the moment it's more than what almost all everyday users need, but the trend is definitely towards it being something that most people could learn/would benefit greatly from learning. So then the problem is identifying when that transition happens; perhaps it's already happening in some fields such as the one described in the article.

by edanm 16y ago

avar 16y ago

That analogy doesn't hold up. If you learn mechanics you can repair and maintain your car, and even build a new one. But you'll never get your car to drive your kids to school without you sitting behind the wheel. But you can do the equivalent of that if you're programming literate. We're moving to a digital culture, and if you don't know how to program you'll increasingly only become a consumer of other people's solutions, without the ability to solve your own problems. Some people are calling this "procedural literacy". As an aside I'd argue that computer interfaces have actually gotten somewhat worse while getting more friendly to newcomers. I think the last major leap in computer interfaces was cron(1). Unlike most modern interfaces being produced today you can use it to tell your computer to produce periodic reports and things like that. That's where we should be headed with UI's, not aiming to have a monkey banging at the terminal at all times, but giving the monkey the ability to dictate things to the computer so he doesn't have to bang at the terminal. Real computing power is being able to say: "Computer, I'm feeling under the weather today and I think I'll sleep in. At 9am please start playing 'Daddy's sick, get up and go to school!' on a loop in the kid's bedroom at 75 dB, and continue producing noise until they get out the door, engage!". You can implement those sorts of things if you're a programmer.

jonsen 16y ago
There sure is some truth in that procedural awareness should be higher. But I think the analogy holds. You should not teach mechanics, but you should teach natural sciences in a way that principles are transferable to mechanics, and to building, and to a lot of other things. I think it's deeply wrong to try and raise procedural awareness by forcing the technicalities of state of the art programming on the common man. You should find a way to teach algorithmic principles so that they are generally applicable.
- avar 16y ago
  I think you need to teach these things at an early age, and teaching "algorithmic principles" while sound in theory is probably also a good way to make an entire class of children ignore you completely. The best way to teach people procedural awareness is probably to teach people to tinker with something they can start using right away. Things like automatically programming your phone to reply to your parents via SMS with some plausible responses when you're out drinking, use the Facebook API to get info about your friends that they thought wasn't accessible etc. Show how you can use rtmpdump to download your favorite music from some closed video site, or write a script for uTorrent that'll have downloaded your favorite TV episode by the time you wake up. The most important thing is to show people that procedural awareness will be worthwhile for them in their everyday life. It's easy to demonstrate that, and it's actually true for most people, unlike other some other subjects at school which'll probably never be pertinent to the average student.
  - jonsen 16y ago
    Tinkering is fine. The real problem is making abstractions and general knowledge from it. All too easily tinkering turns into nerdery, thrilling some, despicable to others.
  - hoprocker 16y ago
    > The most important thing is to show people that procedural awareness will be worthwhile for them in their everyday life. Make knowledge acquisition both a) fun and b) timely. Add a motivating situation that leads people to want/need to learn, and they will.

saulhoward 16y ago

> That's like saying mechanics classes should be required I think mechanics class should totally be required. I'm often amazed that we force children to study subjects like geography or physics, that are important but only if you're interested in them and not terribly practical anyway. I think all children should have to learn basic life skills to enable them to control their physical and social environment ('hack' in the context of this article). Subjects such as driving, mechanics, basic electronics, law, small business, tax, nutrition, rhetoric, negotiation, plumbing etc. etc. And those just off the top of my head. All 'academic' subjects should merely be introduced and then left up to the student to choose to pursue. What on earth is the point of filling children's heads full of history (for example) if they aren't interested? They forget every word of it a year after their final exam anyway.

edanm 16y ago
Your points are definitely interesting. But I still think I'd teach a lot of what you wrote above before I'd even think to teach them programming. Plus, empirically, people have a harder time learning to program than e.g. learning to drive.

felixc 16y ago

Well, the underlying question is whether simple scripting is (in your analogy) closer to "mechanics" or to "driver's license education". I think you're right that at the moment it's more than what almost all everyday users need, but the trend is definitely towards it being something that most people could learn/would benefit greatly from learning. So then the problem is identifying when that transition happens; perhaps it's already happening in some fields such as the one described in the article.